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Appearance
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We see things as we are, not as they are.
-Leo Rosten
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Authors & Writing
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A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
-Leo Rosten
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Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
-Leo Rosten
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The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.
-Leo Rosten
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Belief
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I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
-Leo Rosten
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Bravery
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Courage is the capacity to confirm what can be imagined.
-Leo Rosten
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Communication
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Extremists think communication means agreeing with them.
-Leo Rosten
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Cynicism
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Satire is focused bitterness.
-Leo Rosten
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Enjoyment
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If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
-Leo Rosten
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Fate & Destiny
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I sometimes think there is a dimension beyond the four of experience and Einstein: insight, that fifth dimension which promises to liberate us from bondage to the long, imperfect past
-Leo Rosten, Captain Newman, M.D. (closing lines)
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Happiness
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Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
-Leo Rosten
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Humor
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Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
-Leo Rosten
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Humor is, I think, the sublets and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers
-Leo Rosten
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Motivational
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I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.
-Leo Rosten
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Reading
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In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.
-Leo Rosten
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Strength
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I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
-Leo Rosten
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Truth
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Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.
-Leo Rosten
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Books by and about Leo Rosten